The shoreline around Arnside

I’ll start with a very quick explanation as to the premise of this trip: Mick (still failing to get to grips with the concept of retirement) has gone back to work for a few weeks, and I’ve just come to the end of a project on which I have been working, so rather than spending the next couple of weeks repeating walks along our local paths, I decided to go on a bit of a tour (Gayle’s Tour, as I’m dubbing it). It’s not really a walking tour. I’m on my way up to Morayshire, to see Louise and David, visiting other friends on the way there and back, with the aim of also taking a little walk each day (provided the weather isn’t too horrible!).

The tour started early this morning; I was on the road at just gone 6.30, and after a few hours of driving and a bit of faffing over deciding where to park Colin, off I set for a walk around Arnside.

People were out aplenty as I set off from a few paces away from the railway bridge. Within the mile, I was on my lonesome, as I left behind the view of the bridge…

…and made my way along the shore line south-west to Blackstone Point:

Under heavy grey skies, which suggested that the forecast rain was going to soak me through before the morning was out, the views weren’t as they might have been, but it was it was still a mightily nice walk. (As it went, only a few spots of drizzle hit me and they were so innocuous as to justify me describing the walk as ‘dry’.)

Rounding Blackstone Point, the wind hit me, but it proved not to be an impediment for more than 10 minutes, as I then opted to leave the shore and make my way up to the path which runs a little higher up, through the woods.

Past Far Arnside, I ignored the line I had plotted on the map, partly because I’m lazy and wasn’t moved to walk the distance I had plotted, and partly because I’d spotted Arnside Tower and decided to go and take a look at it (it’s possible I’ve been there before, but if I have, I don’t recall the visit). In the absence of an information sign, Wikipedia has filled in a little of the detail of its history for me.

Ankle-deep slurry was the order of the day through the farmyard below where I followed the two-sides-of-a-triangle along which the footpath runs. I could easily have just trespassed along the third edge of the triangle and kept my boots clean.

Once through Middlebarrow Wood, farmland took me back to Arnside where Colin was sitting patiently where I’d left him. I swiftly pointed him in the direction of Conrad’s house, and a few hours were enjoyed supping tea, eating cake and talking maps, walks, plans and photos.

I’m glad that I made tracks as darkness approached (I’m a bit miffed that the clocks changed just before my tour; it would be much more useful to me to have the light in the evening rather than the morning) as tonight’s campsite is extremely dark and I would have struggled with the solo manoeuvre onto my original pitch had it been much later (as it went, I didn’t much like my original neighbours, so after dark I moved – but to a pitch with much better access).

Today’s stats: 6.6 miles with just 400’(ish) of ascent.